Infrastructure as landscape as architecture

In a critical review this chapter shows how the Yokohama Ferry Terminal by Foreign Office Architects crossed the three distinct realms of ‘infrastructure’, ‘architecture’ and ‘landscape’. This key individual project dissolved disciplinary borders between the three disciplines and achieved new methodical grounds for design. It is a precedent in a general shift in the development of the design disciplines of the built environment. The single project shows how deep conceptual shifts affect the disciplinary assumptions that initially limited this task for architects–and how versatile the strategies of infrastructure and landscape are in architecture. While the Yokohama Ferry Terminal is at first sight simply a passenger terminal, it is also an infrastructural transport-related building, used most of the time as a garden-like public space. At first elaborating on definitions of the three terms ‘infrastructure’, ‘landscape’, and ‘architecture’, the article will question how plausible and useful these divisions between the categories are for designers, or if we should rather focus on the crossings of these divisions. A discipline that wants to be dynamic is to be explored at its edges as well as preserved in its core. Such crossings become especially relevant in ambitious projects. With this example at hand, this chapter explores the disciplinary framework and will touch upon design methodological definitions. The case study is valuable to show the full depth of field that architecture with landscape methods can have within contemporary architectural production and how landscape and infrastructure can merge in new kinds of public artifacts beyond object centered design. The themes that make the Yokohama Ferry Terminal’s form or ‘scape’ can be summarised under the term ‘flow’

Landscape Strategies in Architecture

The central question and purpose of the thesis is to understand how landscape as a design concept is changing our understanding of architecture. It explores the ways in which landscape is relevant for design strategies in architecture. Buildings that have been designed like landscapes have become a topic in contemporary architecture and in the recent literature about it. The apparent distinction between architecture and landscape is questioned in exemplary theoretical works and building designs with increasing interest in landscape as a phenomenon of contemporary architecture. To understand this phenomenon this thesis first explores the term of landscape and its design. The introduction focuses on the exploration of the idea of landscape and how it is applicable in architectural design. Strategies of landscape design as they are discussed in contemporary landscape architecture are defined and illustrated with specific examples. This view is contrasted with the idea of nature in architecture. Architecture's concepts of nature reveal some crucial problems that lead to the polarity of 'wild' nature and 'human' architecture. With a critique of these common architectural theories and within the methodological differentiation the thesis reveals the necessity of research through analysis of landscape spatial composition in architecture. The core of this thesis is three case studies of architectural designs that approach a building like a landscape. A selection of analytical techniques is applied to key cases in three central chapters. The main analytical model for landscape architectural composition that Steenbergen and Reh (2003) developed for the European Gardens of the Renaissance, Baroque and Enlightenment is applied as a drawing analysis of the formal composition of three selected contemporary architectural projects in a period from 1992 to 2015. Each of the three building designs is studied with the same four-layer method of design analysis. In conjunction with this comparative analysis, a project specific method that reveals unique aspects of each design has been developed. The first case is OMA's unbuilt Jussieu design for two university libraries in Paris. In 1992 Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his collaborators at OMA proposed the Jussieu project at a turning point of the discipline, where new forms of architecture with landscape design strategies were being explored. Though this project has not been realised, this thesis makes it possible to describe the building in a guided walk-through. This visualisation of the design as it could have looked if built is also the specific analytical method chosen for this example. The second case, the Rolex Learning Centre at EPF Lausanne, has been clearly declared 'landscape' as architecture by its designers. This competition winning design from 2004 and opened in 2010 is the largest scale international building of Japanese Architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA). The specific analytical method used for this case is a visual space analysis of the project using 3D-isovists. The third case is the City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela by American architect Peter Eisenman. This project was initially designed in 1999 in a process of layering - in principle, similar to the layer model analysis of this thesis. However, the four tenets of the thesis layer model - ground form, spatial form, metaphorical form and programmatic form - will alter the reading of this project. This execution of the giant public project of "City of Culture" was interrupted half-way in 2015, with great political difficulties fo Galicia. The specific analytical method used for this case is an experiment that uses the ruins of unbuilt architecture as the base for a landscape architectural design. This design of a temporary garden mimics the design principles of architect Peter Eisenman. This experiment shows that landscape strategies developed for the design of a building can be applied in reverse for designed landscapes. In conclusion, this thesis will compare the three case studies of architectural designs with each other. While some design instruments, strategies and methods are specific, others are commonly applied in several or all of the projects. In a broader scope, the analysis is transposed into the greater societal and theoretical realm to explore whether landscape design strategies change architecture. For the discipline of architecture in general, the thesis explores how far landscape could lead the profession further as a new concept to build a sustainable human environment. Evoking potential applications and the reach of landscape in architecture in the perspective of future development, the thesis ultimately discusses unexplored potentials for landscape design strategies in the architectural discipline

Landscape Strategies in Architecture

The central question and purpose of the thesis is to understand how landscape as a design concept is changing our understanding of architecture. It explores the ways in which landscape is relevant for design strategies in architecture. Buildings that have been designed like landscapes have become a topic in contemporary architecture and in the recent literature about it. The apparent distinction between architecture and landscape is questioned in exemplary theoretical works and building designs with increasing interest in landscape as a phenomenon of contemporary architecture. To understand this phenomenon this thesis first explores the term of landscape and its design. The introduction focuses on the exploration of the idea of landscape and how it is applicable in architectural design. Strategies of landscape design as they are discussed in contemporary landscape architecture are defined and illustrated with specific examples. This view is contrasted with the idea of nature in architecture. Architecture's concepts of nature reveal some crucial problems that lead to the polarity of 'wild' nature and 'human' architecture. With a critique of these common architectural theories and within the methodological differentiation the thesis reveals the necessity of research through analysis of landscape spatial composition in architecture. The core of this thesis is three case studies of architectural designs that approach a building like a landscape. A selection of analytical techniques is applied to key cases in three central chapters. The main analytical model for landscape architectural composition that Steenbergen and Reh (2003) developed for the European Gardens of the Renaissance, Baroque and Enlightenment is applied as a drawing analysis of the formal composition of three selected contemporary architectural projects in a period from 1992 to 2015. Each of the three building designs is studied with the same four-layer method of design analysis. In conjunction with this comparative analysis, a project specific method that reveals unique aspects of each design has been developed. The first case is OMA's unbuilt Jussieu design for two university libraries in Paris. In 1992 Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his collaborators at OMA proposed the Jussieu project at a turning point of the discipline, where new forms of architecture with landscape design strategies were being explored. Though this project has not been realised, this thesis makes it possible to describe the building in a guided walk-through. This visualisation of the design as it could have looked if built is also the specific analytical method chosen for this example. The second case, the Rolex Learning Centre at EPF Lausanne, has been clearly declared 'landscape' as architecture by its designers. This competition winning design from 2004 and opened in 2010 is the largest scale international building of Japanese Architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA). The specific analytical method used for this case is a visual space analysis of the project using 3D-isovists. The third case is the City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela by American architect Peter Eisenman. This project was initially designed in 1999 in a process of layering - in principle, similar to the layer model analysis of this thesis. However, the four tenets of the thesis layer model - ground form, spatial form, metaphorical form and programmatic form - will alter the reading of this project. This execution of the giant public project of "City of Culture" was interrupted half-way in 2015, with great political difficulties fo Galicia. The specific analytical method used for this case is an experiment that uses the ruins of unbuilt architecture as the base for a landscape architectural design. This design of a temporary garden mimics the design principles of architect Peter Eisenman. This experiment shows that landscape strategies developed for the design of a building can be applied in reverse for designed landscapes. In conclusion, this thesis will compare the three case studies of architectural designs with each other. While some design instruments, strategies and methods are specific, others are commonly applied in several or all of the projects. In a broader scope, the analysis is transposed into the greater societal and theoretical realm to explore whether landscape design strategies change architecture. For the discipline of architecture in general, the thesis explores how far landscape could lead the profession further as a new concept to build a sustainable human environment. Evoking potential applications and the reach of landscape in architecture in the perspective of future development, the thesis ultimately discusses unexplored potentials for landscape design strategies in the architectural discipline

Architecture’s involvement with Landscape

While nature is an important component of architectural theory, we must reevaluate how architecture deals with nature in theory in order to place landscape in this thesis in the disciplinary context of architecture. While revisiting 17 of architecture's crucial exponents throughout twenty centuries, I explore their dealings with landscape or nature and the concepts thereof. The beginning of this chapter (3.1) will touch on some crucial problems that lead to the polarity of 'wild' nature and human architecture, or more precisely, the divide between nature and humanity through architecture. Part of the theoretical problem elaborated in the beginning of the chapter is, that landscape and nature are oftentimes conflated if not confused, in particular by architects. Out of my critique of a thematic selection of common architectural theories and within the methodological differentiation (3.2), I will argue for the necessity of research through analyses of landscape spatial composition in architecture. This argument should lead to introduce my application of the a twofold analytical model. One side of the analysis is about the form of the landscape architectural composition (Steenbergen & Reh 2003) with a method of drawing analysis of the formal composition of architectural projects in this thesis. The other side is evaluation of their strategies with the previously explained four attitudes. The introduction the twofold analytical methods will conclude with the research framework for our further investigation into Landscape Design Strategies drawing from the different theories of the conceptual landscape attitudes and the formal landscape composition, our research framework will merge these two theories into a complete picture of the phenomenon. In section 3.3, I will propose what has led to the selection and varied analytical techniques throughout this study and motivated the selection of key cases. I will treat the three cited cases in each individual chapters 4, 5 and 6

Two Libraries at Jussieu, Paris

The lack of OMA’s Jussieu project in the reference literature could easily be interpreted as a sign of unimportance. However this design for a university library holds essential keys to our question how architecture is spatially composed using landscape strategies. This unbuilt design is an influential work at the turning point of the discipline, where new principles are explored. A whole series of projects by many architects in contemporary architecture could in some way or another relate to this project. In the first section of this chapter I will introduce the argumentation of our various reasons for the choice of the Jussieu project as en example of architecture designed as landscape in regard to existing research in reference literature (4.1). Then I will explain the project in its larger context (4.2). Although Jussieu is an unbuilt design, I will describe the building in a guided walk through from my reading of the design in the sources and the specific ‘pro-construction’ imagery (4.3). I will describe the steps that lead to this imagery later in the chapter. I keep a brief a paragraph about the design (4.4) to explain more about why this project was not built. To analyse the Jussieu project’s workings I display the account of the 4-layer method with all relevant drawings (4.5) and our interpretations of them. As a specific method for this project I chose virtual representations of the design that will be explained in 4.6. I will then test the concept of landscape in our framework of landscape architectural attitudes (4.7) to conclude with a theoretical framing of the essential contribution of proprietary design instruments of this project to architectures emerging landscape design strategies (4.8)

Rolex Learning Centre at EPFL, Lausanne

The Rolex Learning Centre has been overly announced, published and praised as ‘landscape’ as architecture. Completed in 2010, it is the largest scale international building of Japanese Architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA), and it quickly becomes clear the designer’s explicit aim was to solve a complex programmatic and spatial request with an artificial landscape. The commitment of the building to the creation of landscape explains the choice of the project for this study (5.1.). The context of the project in the EPFL campus of Lausanne and its insertion in the lake Geneva landscape deserve some explanation as well as the specific need for it and how that was answered by the design (5.2.). The impression from the field-trip will be described in the next section (5.3.). The challenging form led to a relatively long planning and building process in which quite unusual techniques and structural design were used for concrete reinforcements, formwork and even pouring at high local building standards (5.4.). My 4 layer analysis can be executed in a pure and complete manner (5.5.). The specific analytical method used for Rolex Learning Centre is a visual space analysis of this project with a 3D isovist software tool, a method I will introduce in the respective section (5.6). My exploration of the landscape architectural attitudes will also stress the important role of these spatial aspects among landscape architectural approaches (5.7.). My critique will engage the total picture to understand this creation of landscape as architecture and its extension of our conceptual understanding of landscape strategies (5.8.)

City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela

The choice of City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela will be explained from its validity as a singular case (6.1.). I will explain the context of this project also in the religious world of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (6.2.). My impression from the two field-trips in 2014 will precede the analysis (6.3.) and again building this large and ambitious project posed a specific challenge to the merits of a few technical considerations (6.4.). As my documentation will show, this project is designed in a process of layering - not very different form our own analytical model in principle. However, our own layer model of ground form, spatial form, metaphorical form and programmatic form will alter the reading of the project (6.5.). Exactly these analogies between design architectonic process and landscape architectural analysis seem to be worth a specific method of design analysis. I will try to show composition strategies of shifting and shuffling of layers, altering and transforming of scales, stratification and even the inversion of layers as a specific method of this design (6.6.). Composition analysis should show that the specific landscape attitudes in this project are related to the idea of the palimpsest - multi-layered writing or ‘artificial excavation’ as Eisenman calls it in my interview (6.7., A1.31.). One can therefore find many entries in landscape architectonic attitudes but also a surprisingly contrasting position of the author’s denial of landscape influences in favour of what he calls the ‘excess of reason’ to understand this complex design (6.8.)

Comparative Conclusions

In the first section of this last chapter (7.1.) I will “comparatively” answer the main question related to each case before coming to broader discussion (7.2.) all of which contributes the the main question: In what way do landscape design strategies change how we understand and create architecture? (Q 1.1.1.) At first I differentiate the motives and objectives for landscape strategies in the specific context of each of the three study cases in chapters 4, 5 & 6 to discuss the development of landscape design strategies in architecture: How do architects apply landscape design strategies in architecture? What are their motives and goals to do so and what do they accomplish? (Q. 1.1.3.) In terms of spatial contexts the projects are quite different. In particular, the dense urban situation with a long history dating back centuries in Paris; the implementation in a modern campus in Lausanne; and the placement outside Santiago with historical reference to the early medieval city are three completely different project contexts. In terms of surrounding landscapes, the riverside urban development of Paris; the large plateau above the lake Geneva; and Monte Gaiás across the valley from Santiago pose different landscape relations

Landscape Design Strategies

In the second chapter we will set the thematic context more specifically and explore the terms of landscape and its design strategies as I will use them throughout this study. The whole chapter focuses on the exploration of the idea of landscape around the question: What landscape strategies are applicable in architectural design? (Q. 1.1.2) I refer to landscape from a number of selected standpoints and discuss the concepts of landscape space. There I encounter crucial ideas about the human experience of landscape that are generally applicable to understanding space (2.1.). This will lead to a specific and concise definition of the discipline of landscape architecture through its approach to landscape itself (2.2.). Of many strategies of landscape design, this thesis relies on a comprehensive definition of landscape architecture "attitudes" by Sebastien Marot (1999). I illustrate each of Marot's four attitudes of landscape design with specific examples and distribute key concepts to landscape (2.3.1. to .4.). To explain the application of landscape strategies, I also place the four attitudes of landscape in the theoretical context of architecture in each section and briefly summarise them in the last subchapter 2.3.4. The introduction of landscape attitudes in this chapter is different and more accurate than the idea of nature in architecture that I will discuss in the chapter three

Context and Precedent Studies

The first chapter introduces the central questions and purpose of the thesis and explores the ways in which landscape could again become relevant for architecture. I will establish the background to our spatial analysis by defining landscape and architecture in a theoretical elaboration of their crucial interrelations. I will give an outline of the the context of this research (1.1) and state the research questions (1.2). I will open the next section by stating the context of discussion: apparent distinction between architecture and landscape in exemplary theoretical and practical works (1.3). I will then review and reflect on the literature that touched on the subject of this thesis, buildings that have been designed like landscapes, focusing on the aspects that are particularly relevant to the thesis (1.4). These reflections will not only show an increasing interest in landscape as a phenomenon of contemporary architecture but also position the emerging landscape strategies in architecture that I will demonstrate as both critical and urgent towards architects in design practice. Section 1.5. will introduce the methodology in relation to these precedents